Iterated Theory of Mind

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I've noticed lots of my problems don't come from a lack of theory of mind, but from not realizing people well read further into I write than I intended. So to some degree it's lack of theory of mind, but specifically it's not having natural NT theory of mind, and just going off of first-order autistic theory of mind. For example, someone was talking about the Malaysian Airlines crashes, and I commented that I flew on them in the time period, intending to show how the events personally disturbed me by being closer. I got the response that "that's not the point", and it took me a while to figure out what he meant. I think I deduced that he thought my intent was to play down it's the danger of Malaysia Airlines. So this makes me think, the problem isn't a lack of theory of mind, I'm perfectly aware people have other states of mind on an intuitive level, but a lack of a natural understanding of the thoughts processes, most notably how NTs use Theory of Mind, so while I can work out stuff like this with effort, it doesn't come naturally, and I don't pick up naturally how people can misread intents because I just know my own intent and don't naturally think about the process of deducing intents as it's just not my nature. Does this make any sense?

It makes sense to me. Their TOM only works well with each other ( with NTs ).

I relate to it

Yes.

I have always had the idea that other people had their own mental states, intentions and so on. But it's true that I always thought that their way of thinking was more like mine. I don't think I realized how differently most people think until I was in my late 20s and even then, I incorrectly assumed that the people who thought very differently were in a minority. It was very hard for me to see that I was in the minority, despite ample evidence of this.

I think this is partly to do with not being good at interpreting a range of visual signals of emotion and mood. I used to think I was good at reading other people, although I found their behavior perplexing. I misunderstood that the things I could see in their faces and body language were a small part of what was being communicated.

I remember talking with people about different kinds of perception in high school: what does a colorblind person see: green or red? What a congenitally blind person imagine when they heard descriptions of colors and other visual features? Then I realized: I am that person. There is a world of emotional communication that I am blind to. I think people have randomly changed when they had been signalling their position and I could not perceive it-could not accurately interpret the information my eyes were giving me.

I think some researchers have confused the inability to interpret indications of the inner state of another with an inability to conceive of inner states in others. But I also think the inability to perceive the emotional expression of others inhibits your imagination of what their states of mind are--so the effect is an impaired TOM.

I don't believe I discerned that other people thought differently from myself, nor even cared, until I was an adolescent. I didn't set out to harm anybody.....but I really didn't care about anybody but myself at that time.

I didn't like to see people cry, and I would aid somebody who was in distress--but, most of the time, it was as I stated above.

I believe I started caring about what people thought about me around early adolescence.

I believe I started discerning that people had thoughts/feelings different from mine when I was around age 15.

I often wonder whether Baron-Cohen's definition of theory of mind is the same implied on Wrong Planet.

From the Journal "Cognition", 1985, Baron-Cohen defines what he means by lacking a theory of mind - this is a verbatim definition by him from an article of his:

This model (theory of mind) specifies a mechanism which underlies a crucial
aspect of social skills, namely being able to conceive of mental states: that is,
knowing that other people know, want, feel, or believe things; in short, having
what Premack and Woodruff (1978) termed a ‘theory of mind’.

the crucial phrase: knowing that other people know, want, feel, or believe things This is what autistics can't do and can't know according to SBC's theory of mind. That's what it actually means..

I'm a bit older than SBC and have quite an extensive life experience. I have worked in universities, hospitals, privately, and met thousands of people in the course of work, travel, daily life, groups I have belonged to, communities I have lived in, schools I have attended, seminars and presentations I have given..I have lived in four different countries and travelled extensively.

Despite this wide and longstanding exposure to human life in all its many varieties, I have yet to meet a single person, in either the neurotypical or neurodiverse communities, who does not know that other people know things, want things, feel things, believe things.

It's been glossed over a lot in threads on WP, but when you read what Baron-Cohen preaches from the primary source, the bizarre nature of the claim is too obvious to obfuscate or ignore. (If, however, you read it and can't see how dehumanizing and inaccurate the claim is, then perhaps you do lack theory of mind...)

Agree.

It seems that the claimed lack of theory of mind and also the claimed lack of empathy are sufficiently plausible "explanations" for autistic behaviours to build entire careers on.

The behaviours in question that have the potential to irritate typical humans, including so-called autism experts, are those that don't include culturally expected acknowledgement of social status, or those that can be construed as questioning the social status of an individual.

Since a lot of typical social interaction revolves around climbing some form of social status hierarchy, any behaviour that simply ignores the existence of social hierarchies is viewed as highly dysfunctional and deficient.

Persistent ignorance of social status hierarchies lead Baron-Cohen and others to conclude that autistics don't perceive other humans as living entities capable of knowing, wanting, feeling, and believing – because when interacting with a living human, anyone would "obviously" pay due respect to the established social order at all times. This implicit assumption is neither mentioned nor validated by Baron-Cohen.

The difference in behaviour could of course also be explained by a difference in personal values and related beliefs, but that avenue of exploration does not lead to a theory that reaffirms the established social order.

I have "defective Theory of Mind", but it is written that I do not form an idea about what information people do have, what "is going on in their heads" and what their intentions are, because if you know what is going on in people's head, you can easier tell their intentions.

I think for adult autistics it is less a question of knowing that people know, want, feel or believe things, but more a question about not being able to tell what they know, want, feel or believe and thus reacting accordingly to it.

I've had a recent experience that I think might be revealing about this TOM business as it applies to a lot of aspies.

A friend wrote me a list of tasks to do in this way.

"You do A, B, and C, and I will do D."

So I started with B and C because that's what was possible for me to do at the time and made the most sense to me.

He got angry and had expected me to take the tasks in order, as in "do A first, then B, then C, and when that's all done I will do D."

I said hey you didn't say that or use any wording that specified the order, or an IF/THEN scenario.
He then acted like I was completely stupid and should have known.
I told him that I can't read his mind so he would have to have specified the wording correctly.
He ended the friendship over this.

So, of course I have TOM and can pass a TOM test, but there's something else at play there.
I think the emotional part or intuition that normally goes along with TOM get filtered out by rational thought.
I might think I know what someone meant, but without logical proof of that, then I discard the intuition as unreliable.
Or perhaps the intuitions are wrong so often that a filter is needed.
Or the intuition is lost or never produced.
Or, maybe it's a problem with NTs expecting people to read their minds after they make some vague communication.

I'm not sure how TOM related the example actually is..(?) I am inclined to think it of it as perhaps more personality defects on your ex-friends part? Intuition is an inner sense of things, roughly speaking, and someone who communicates to you in concealed ways, or uses double binds, etc, is either a poor communicator or simply a hostile personality... you cannot intuit what they say however intuitive you are, because they obscure their underlying intentions. Nt's can't do it with hostile personalities either, even Nt to Nt..

Olympiadis: Obviously, your friend could have been more diplomatic. If he ended the friendship because of this, he's not a friend, indeed.

I might want to do C before A, and B last. What does it matter if it yields the same results?

How did you not doing A affect the ultimate results of what your friend wanted you to do?

I have yet to find a theory of mind/mind-blindness believer who has discussed the fact that Nts tend to specialize in indirect communication, "that's an interesting dress you are wearing" (ie they hate it, their only interest in negative) and ASDs tend to specialize in direct communication, "the dress doesn't really suit you".

Both of these statements are indifferent to the dress-owners feelings, thoughts and experiences about wearing the dress, which she presumably wears because she likes it, or it has a special meaning for her.

The mind-blindness label in the above example would only be applied to the ASD speaker. The NT would be seen as merely making an observation that reflected his/her opinion.

For me it is a matter of not thinking about or paying attention to other peoples perspectives, what they might know, want , feel, or believe, in the same way that I forget to look at people or make eye contact when I should.
I focus only on my own perspective.
Maybe it's just too much to juggle all at once in my brain.

nothing at all that I could determine.

Unless skipping A resulted in somebody dying or being seriously injured, your friend sounds like the biggest drama queen ever.



My dad comes pretty close to this. He goes on unhinged rants if anyone - especially my mum - disagrees with his opinions. He literally does not seem able to view anyone's actions or feelings through their eyes. While I'm on the subject, I loathe and despise the man, and wish he wasn't my father. I hate him and I hate having anything in common with him.

But I think I struggle to see things through other people's eyes too. Intellectually I know that they have different beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and wants to myself. As long as it isn't something I feel strongly about, that's absolutely fine and dandy. Live and let live, and all that. But once it clashes with something I feel strongly about, then I'm like "wtf are you on about, m8?" Genuinely struggle to understand.

I agree. The simplified definition of TOM is simply being able to take someone else's perspective. (I don't think the other definition brought up earlier is really necessary to define TOM - it seems to make the concept more complicated than it needs to be. I agree that most people people know that others know, want, feel, and believe things.) Autistic people do tend to show a deficit in theory of mind when you consider the simpler definition and think about our social interactions. Young children tend to show a deficit as well. (According to Piaget's cognitive development theory, children's thoughts are marked by egocentrism throughout the preoperational stage, which is ages 2-7.) A theory of mind deficit has been observed in people with other disorders too, so having one isn't just related to autism either. It might be related to something else, such as another disorder or even something that hasn't even been discovered yet.

@Marybird: Yes, I think that's what Eola was saying. I feel like it's the same for me. I have to think about someone else's perspective because it doesn't come naturally - that's where the deficit comes in for me. When you mentioned not being able to juggle everything in your brain at once, I immediately thought sensory issues, so maybe it has something to do with that? I know people often say that too much stimulation is one reason they can't give eye contact and hold a conversation at the same time; they sound like pretty similar situations.


Same here. If it's a normal topic, I'm not likely to care, but if it's for example, a special interest, it's definitely a struggle. It's even worse if the person is dead wrong and I know they're wrong, but they insist they're right.